A model of scrolling on touch-sensitive displays

Scrolling interaction is a common and frequent activity allowing users to browse content that is initially off-screen. With the increasing popularity of touch-sensitive devices, gesture-based scrolling interactions (e.g., finger panning and flicking) have become an important element in our daily interaction vocabulary. However, there are currently no comprehensive user performance models for scrolling tasks on touch displays. This paper presents an empirical study of user performance in scrolling tasks on touch displays. In addition to three geometrical movement parameters—scrolling distance, display window size, and target width, we also investigate two other factors that could affect the performance, i.e., scrolling modes—panning and flicking, and feedback techniques—with and without distance feedback. We derive a quantitative model based on four formal assumptions that abstract the real-world scrolling tasks, which are drawn from the analysis and observations of user scrolling actions. The results of a control experiment reveal that our model generalizes well for direct-touch scrolling tasks, accommodating different movement parameters, scrolling modes and feedback techniques. Also, the supporting blocks of the model, the four basic assumptions and three important mathematical components, are validated by the experimental data. In-depth comparisons with existing models of similar tasks indicate that our model performs the best under different measurement criteria. Our work provides a theoretical foundation for modeling sophisticated scrolling actions, as well as offers insights into designing scrolling techniques for next-generation touch input devices.